Mirror Image
by Pippin4242
Summary: And the door opened to show the person Fai least expected to meet, here of all places... Kurogane POV, and others, 1337 words a chapter. Ongoing.
1. Apples and Pears

_Chapitre One: Apples and Pears_

By now, of course, we had come almost to expect it. Syaoran had identified various strangers as Sakura's brother, their high priest, and his own sensei; I had experienced my startling encounter with Tomoyo-hime (which is not to say that I didn't act like a fool, because I did), and we had even begun to encounter faces duplicated from friends we had made _after_ our journey began, like the hot-headed warrior lad who we met in that dream. Still, it must have been surprising for Fai. To open the door and to see himself standing there.

I'm not sure that that excused his hysterical response. He didn't run away, and he didn't scream, but for that strange friend of ours it was a precise analogue. His reactions have never exactly been normal, but I'm starting to see a pattern in them. And when he starts smiling like that, it's never a good sign.

---

It was a bright noontime in this new world, but we had departed from the last at dusk, and Sakura-hime was already asleep in my arms. She's a light little thing, and didn't much trouble me, but she was bound to wake with a crick in her neck, and I supported Syaoran when he suggested we find an inn immediately. The boy will make a good leader some day. Fai of course smirked, and asked if I was getting tired of being the group's beast of burden, but when I asked him if he would prefer to carry her himself, he simply skipped off and declared that he was our mascot, and couldn't be expected to do such things.

"But Fai-san," shrilled Mokona, "I thought _I_ was the mascot!"

"Oh, oh, I didn't mean to displace you!" chirruped Fai, grabbing Mokona and swinging it through the air. "But you are far more important than that! You are our translator, and without your help Kuro-pon would never be able to understand his family!"

And then they giggled, and made up a song.

I swear, if I wasn't cursed...

It was a beautiful place though, and truth be told, it was quite pleasant carrying the little girl. It gave me a good reason to go slowly and take in my surroundings, without having to cry out in delight at everything like Fai, or gawk like a bumpkin, which was Syaoran's reaction. The buildings were of strange craft; tall and slender, there was a good deal of glasswork in the façade of each; a different colour on every building; a jar of fantastic sweets, glittering in the sun. The people were holding a market, it seemed; and they were much untroubled, which was a definite bonus after some of the war-ravaged places we'd visited of late. The foods on each stall looked bizarre to me, and I know that if Sakura-hime were awake, she would immediately try to identify which one of them was an apple.

"Oi, mage." I nudged Fai. "Go and see if they'll take our money here... and if they do, then will you buy an apple?"

Fai looked for a moment as if he were going to protest automatically, but then his brain clicked into place, and he smiled and walked unhurriedly up to the very next stall. Syaoran was staring at the crowds, and didn't notice his departure for a moment – and visibly started when he did, wheeling with sudden worry.

"Ah, Kurogane-san! Where has Fai-san gone?"

"He's trying to work out what an apple looks like on this weird world," I replied. Just as I closed my mouth a woman walked past carrying what looked to me like a carrot – which was fully an arm-span in length, and a rather diverting shade of blue. It's always nice when fate illustrates your point.

Fai was chatting merrily to the young lady running the stall, and had most likely said something indecent, because she was blushing. He came back to join us, grinning from ear to ear, tossing a small green and red fruit like a ball, and holding a paper bag in his hand.

"Is that their apple?" I asked.

"Nope!" he grinned.

I resisted the urge to ask him why he'd wasted our money on it, because that would only be giving him what he wanted. Instead, I shifted Sakura-hime's weight onto one of my arms, and reached out to grab the fruit with my freed hand. It was a green-blotched pear, plain and simple. I tried to hide my irritation as I tossed it back at his head, and held Sakura-hime properly again.

"Why have you bought a-"

"A pear, right?" he asked cheerfully, catching it without looking.

"Well-" I stuttered, wrong-footed. He loves to do this to me.

"I just remembered what Papa said in the Hanshin Republic! These are exactly like the apples which we grew in my country."

"So..." murmured Syaoran. "Mokona can only translate the spirit of a sentence, and if we use different words for a similar thing, then the words get jumbled up..."

"Right!" said Fai. "And if it's a word which has no meaning to you two whatsoever, then it doesn't get translated at all! Kuro-fuu told me he's never heard of a laki fruit before, so that means he must be using my word for it." Mokona looked abashed at this. At least, I think it did. "Ah, don't worry, Moko-chan!" Fai added, brightly. "Think how useful it is that your spell is so clever! If we ever had to wear a disguise and change our names, for example, the people we lied to would hear what we wanted them to, and not what we were directly referring to!"

"Ne!" chipped Mokona, its ears rising in excitement. Syaoran still looked calculating as we carried on down the road. "So... if Fai-san wants me to call him Yukito-san, I hear him saying 'Call me Yukito,' even though 'Yukito' means 'Fai' in that sentence. That's clever!"

"So the only difficulty the spell makes for us," I found myself saying, "is that if we're using different words for similar things, the connotations get jumbled. It's most likely that we're not all using the word 'apple' in the first place. But maybe... it's a common fruit in all of our countries, which can be stored through the winter?" Syaoran nodded at that, looking satisfied, and Fai smiled at me. He started to eat the 'apple' as we walked on, and then another thought occurred to me.

"That can't possibly be right. When we first met you, you were geared as if you were going to climb a mountain. I've never seen so much fur in one place. How can so similar a fruit grow in the desert and in the tundra?"

Fai's perpetual grin left him for a moment as he considered, looking up at the few slow-moving clouds. "I didn't say we grew apples in my town. We had many imported goods too. So I suppose the connotations are still the same, right? The fruits probably grow in a similar environment. Or they could be hardier than you're thinking, I suppose." His smile returned at that. I wasn't at all sure that his statement fitted with his previous words, but the conversation had become so convoluted that I decided it was best not to press him on such a small point. Still, he had my interest now. I wondered how the magic did work, and whether it kept them from knowing my true name – the one which only Tomoyo-hime was meant to remember these days. I imagined so, because I heard Fai's taunts using the 'kuroi' sound in a way which wouldn't apply to my true name. A clever spell then, which allowed the northerner mage, with his strange sing-song language, to make a pun which both of us understood.

A pity it made him insufferable.


	2. Butterflies and Hurricanes

_Chapitre Two: Butterflies and Hurricanes_

Strange, evasive creature. Fai always acted as if he had something to hide. I think that perhaps if he'll talk to me tonight, then I'll find out something of what troubles him so.

I don't hold out any great hope, though.

It was him who lead us here, of course. After wasting our money on an apple which looked like a pear, and then eating it before Sakura-hime even had a chance to see it, I wasn't overly pleased with him. But the damned trickster always plays his cards close to his chest.

"What's wrong, Kuro-wan?" he asked energetically, still sucking juice from his fingers. "Worried that our little princess won't get to see what we've been talking about?" He fell into step with me, and for the first time, I realised that his paper bag was full, as he opened it to show me...

"Daikon?"

"Aren't they just!" he exclaimed happily. "Okay, so that's not the name I know them by myself, but don't they look too... savoury to be a fruit? It must mean that they have nothing at all which stores like an apple here."

"What do you call them, Fai-san?" asked Syaoran, joining us with an intense look of scholarly curiosity. "They don't grow in Clow Country, and I've never heard of a daikon."

"Well they must be different in some ways, or I'd hear the same word," mused Fai, "but we have something which looks similar, called a radish."

"What does the writing on the bag say?" I asked Syaoran. "Can you read it at all?" Syaoran took the bag, and peered at it closely, holding it to his one sound eye.

"The writing doesn't look like anything much to me... it reminds me a little of the glyphs they used in the ruins of the Aeolian city which my father and I once mapped... but they're too different. I can't make it out at all." He passed the bag back to Fai, and we fell into step once more on our search for anything remotely inn-like.

Fai grinned at us both. "Don't you want to know what it says, then?"

I started. "You can read it?"

"Nope!" That same, dazzling, inappropriate smile. He let me steam in my own juices for a moment, and then he laughed. "But the friendly young lady on the fruit stand knows! She wrote it down for me. It's the local sign for an inn." I tried, probably unsuccessfully, to hide my annoyance.

"Why didn't you tell us that before? We've just been wandering around aimlessly!" I muttered, unable to stop myself.

"But Kuro-pii, you were so interested in the apples! And I've been looking out for the sign ever since I bought them." At that, I found myself mollified. He may be wildly eccentric, and utterly infuriating, but he's never given me any reason to think him untrustworthy.

Now, up until this point, our experience of this world, whilst nothing you could call everyday, was not odd compared to some of the other countries we'd visited. Things did, however, start getting quite uniquely strange, when a pink-cheeked young woman carrying an enormous sack saw us from across the square, and shouted in excitement.

"Fai-san, Fai-san!"she waved. She ran over to greet us, and looked at Syaoran and I with some curiosity. Her long brown hair was plaited neatly down her back, and her boots were high and sturdy. Something about her gave me the impression that she was dressed for work, and her next action did nothing to assuage me of the suspicion. "I'm glad I bumped into you here, Fai-san! Or is it?" she said with laughter in her tone, as she set down her sack and began to rifle through various packages. I looked at Fai with shock to see that he seemed as surprised as me. She straightened up, handing him a parcel addressed in the same foreign script we'd seen before. "I'm sorry I can't stop and talk, but I'm so late today! I fell asleep on my lunch break," she added with a self-effacing grin. "Thanks for saving me the trouble!" Fai reached out as if to try and stop her, or explain that she'd made a mistake, but her sack was already over her shoulder. "I'll drop by to catch up with you both on my next day off, okay?" she called, without looking back, as she raced across the square again.

"W-wait..." Fai called after her, lamely.

"Fai-san, who was she?" asked Syaoran, surprised but reasonable.

"I-" The mage ran his hand through his ridiculous floppy hair, pushing it out of his eyes. "I have absolutely no idea. I've never seen her before in my life."

Mokona bounced excitedly on his shoulder."Maybe we get to meet another Fai here!" Fai looked horrified at the prospect, and I'm not sure I blame him.

"Well, what am I supposed to do with the package?" he asked worriedly, holding it as if it were about to explode. I actually found myself feeling sorry for him, irritating though he might be. I stepped up behind him, and though my arms were otherwise occupied, tried to make my presence as reassuring as possible.

"Don't worry about it too much. Once we find an inn, we can ask the owners what they make of the address," I suggested calmly.

"Ah... but that's the other strange thing. I think a part of this address..." he singled out a line with his long finger, "matches this!" He held up the bag with the note scribbled on the side. "Could there be somebody who looks like me staying at an inn near here?"

"Stop looking so worried," I advised, with a half-smile. "If we find another you here, at least the odds are pretty fair that he'll be on our side." Strangely, he looked even more worried at that. If he'd only tell us what his problem is, I don't think I'd end up saying unhelpful things so often. "What," I asked tersely, "he'll hurl fireballs at us? If he's anything like you, which he will be, he'll be far too highly-strung to attack any of us."

Fai forced a smile at that. "Kuro-papa thinks I'm highly-strung?" I looked back at him for a moment, unsure of what to say.

Fortuitously, at that moment Sakura-hime stirred in my arms, and made a faint whimpering sound, instantly spurring Syaoran into action. "Come on, let's keep looking for an inn. We won't know for sure until it happens." Fai and I followed him obediently, knowing that once the boy gets an idea into his head, he can't be deterred.

We walked in comparative silence for the next ten minutes, Fai pausing to check every sign, and Syaoran continuing to stare as he tried to take in the entire scene at once. I felt like telling him to close his mouth. If this new country was that fascinating to him, we could take our time, after all. The princess's life was out of immediate danger.

"Aha!" called the mage triumphantly. I walked over to see what he was looking at. My arms were starting to seize up, but I didn't want to call attention to it. If the place looked in the least bit hospitable – which every building so far had – then I would simply suggest that we stay there, rather than keep searching.

The building wasn't as tall as those around it, but it was, if anything, even more colourful. Flowering plants trailed from every awning and crack in the alien façade, and the steps had been polished to a shine. "Hmm, do you think I should knock?" asked Fai cautiously, raising his hand to the glittering, multi-hued door.

Which opened, to reveal his doppelgänger.


	3. Dreams and Dreamers

_Chapitre Three: Dreams and Dreamers_

I've been seeing him in my dreams for some months now. They say that it is easy for people with great magical power to see one another across dimensions, and I knew that he was just as strong as either of us from the moment I first saw him.

Of course, I've never quite been able to work out which one of us he is, or if there might even be two of him coming to ask us for help. In my waking hours, I've never had to bother about differentiating much, since I've always known which one I am. It's a rather easy process of elimination. Still, it was surprising when I finally opened the door to greet him – surprising how much he seemed to be his own person.

---

He was standing on my doorstep, with a look of shock upon his face. His fist was raised as if to knock at the door. He was wearing the outlandish clothes which he had brought from his homeland, and their gold-coloured buckles were gleaming in the sunlight, making me feel underdressed in my work-apron and slippers. Behind him were the companions to whom I had heard his dream-thoughts drift oft-times; the stern-faced ninja, the determined young boy, and the adorable little fairytale princess, stirring muzzily from her safe perch in the ninja's strong arms. The magical creature was there too; I couldn't yet see it, but I could feel its presence, thrumming across my mind; warm, and powerful, and very much alive.

The man before me – my brother, if I may be forgiven for thinking of him as such – was thinner than either of us, and some years younger; and he seemed sterner, somehow, than he had in his dreams. However, his smile was more dazzling than I would ever have imagined any expression of mine could become, as he extended a black gloved hand towards me.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," he said, with an easy-going lilt to his speech. His grip was firm, but not overly so; something about it struck me as calculated. "You don't seem too surprised to meet me, so I suppose you might have had some idea that I was coming?" At that I found my voice.

"I've been watching your dreams for a little while," I admitted, a little guilty now I came to meet him. "Of course," I added, as an afterthought, "I had no choice in the matter." The white-furred creature popped out of my brother's hood, beaming at me. "It's another Fai!" it whooped in excitement, jumping onto my shoulder, and patting my close-cropped hair with its short-armed paws. That cleared up the issue of which twin was standing in front of me, and how many of him I was likely to meet.

"Actually," I told the little creature, trying not to flinch as its ears whipped about my face, "my name is Yuui."

"Odd," murmured the swarthy warrior, "all the other duplicates we've met so far have shared names." The boy looked thoughtful for a second, and then tugged at the outworlder Fai's sleeve.

"The girl in the square called you Fai though! Did she know it was actually you? Could she be a dimensional traveller too?" A look of slight strain flashed across the false-Fai's face.

"Perhaps we'd be better off talking inside." He looked directly at me for the first time, with a surprisingly harsh cast to his gaze. I almost apologised, before I realised I'd not yet done anything wrong. He paused momentarily on the threshold. "By your leave of course."

"O-of course," I agreed, as light-heartedly as I could. This was all going wrong. I'd expected meeting my otherworldy twin to be fascinating, educational, and above all, fun. I certainly hadn't suspected that I might dislike the man. I looked back through the door as I backed out of the way, and I saw nothing untoward on the faces of the other travellers. The boy was good-naturedly admiring the wall hangings as he stepped inside, and the warrior was setting the fatigued girl down with a look of surprising care. I realised they had probably never been inside a building in Alethia before, and strove to regain control of the proceedings. "The shoe-room is over here to the right, everybody, and there are hooks to hang your cloaks in the hallway... if you want to follow me through when you're ready, I've made some tea in preparation for your arrival..." I ducked through under the low beams into the private tea-room, and jumped nearly out of my skin when I saw my traveller-brother somehow waiting there already.

"Yuui, I really must talk to you alone for a few minutes," he implored, grabbing my arm by the wrist. "Would that be possible?" My heart melted to see him like that. He was clearly both worried and wearied, and for a moment he looked absolutely identical to the Fai I had grown up with. I felt a fool and a beast for ever having doubted his integrity; clearly, their travels had taken them through great hardships.

"Okay," I said, patting his arm where it gripped mine. "Don't worry, I'll guide your friends in here, and then we can go back into the shoe-room on a pretext. Is that alright?" His head drooped in clear relief as the tension left him. He gave my arm a quick squeeze before letting go.

"Of course it is." The group were already on their way down the corridor to the tea-room, the ninja gently supporting the princess, who looked about ready to drop down asleep again. "Come on Fai, I'll show you where to hang it," I said, perhaps a little louder than necessary, and the ninja gave me a queer look as I led my obedient other-brother back down the hall. He hung his cloak next to the great black one shed by his dark-skinned friend, and I pulled him quickly into the shoe-room, and closed the door behind me. I felt twelve years old all over again, sharing secrets with my twin, giggling and whispering, and fleeing whenever the adults looked at us. I wondered whether this Fai had shared a secret language with his brother too.

"Dreamseer, do you own this inn or are you staying here?" he asked, looking at me urgently.

"I am part-owner... but why is that so important to you?" I wondered what part of his question I had failed to understand. He looked distraught at my response.

"The other owner... is he your brother?"

"Yes, he's the you of this universe." I smiled at him, thinking how strange it would be when they were finally in the room together.

"Ah-" Other-Fai's breath caught for a moment, and he sank down to the bench, his head in his hands.

"What's wrong with that?" I asked him. "Do you wish not to meet your duplicate?"

"It's not that..." he whispered.

"Because if it is, I can see how it would be sort of strange... I could ask him to stay away! He'd be disappointed of course, but I suppose he could do it another time. Well, I imagine he couldn't. Not if you didn't want to..." I was babbling, filling the space left where his answers should have been. My brother-from-another-world looked up at me then, with anguish written on his young face.

"I'm not Fai at all," he whispered. "I'm Yuui as well."

I felt a sudden thrill then, knowing that I was looking at myself. But still, it didn't make sense. "Your friends-" I began, and he gave me an icy glare, which chilled me to the bone. Suddenly I felt sure once more. This couldn't be me. And then he spoke, his voice cold and clear.

"Fai is dead. I killed him."


	4. Flight and Fright

_Chapitre Four: Flight and Fright_

Everything is going to end. Everything.

---

From the moment when the girl picked me out by my face in the square, I'd been calculating. Trying to work out my next move. But my life was no game of chess, and it was impossible to gauge the moods of fate.

My childhood memories are faint. By sheer distance and by the force of my own will, I remember very little of those few halcyon years before Fai and I were first condemned. But traces remain yet of that disquieting sensation that one does not have exclusive ownership of that most personal of possessions, one's own face. As she panted and wiped the sweat from her eyes, laughing, I knew that the courier had mistaken me for another, and for one elating, horrific moment, I felt my brother's presence again, as if he were breathing over my shoulder, watching to see everything that I had been and was doing in his name.

My fingers turned cold and my hands clenched involuntarily as I remembered clutching at his tiny, broken body – the blood in his hair, the spent, exhausted expression on his face – and as I remembered as well Lord Ashura's kindness in providing for him a secure, watery grave, where, deep down, I suspect that my kind-hearted master hoped that I would never have to look upon Fai's face, my own, again.

No. This girl was no friend of my brother.

As she pressed upon me the package, clearly meant for another, I gathered my wits a little and I remembered Kurogane's encounters with Miss Sohma in the fantasy land within Edonis country, and how men with the faces of the highest nobles of Syaoran and Sakura's country had served us an evening meal in the Hanshin Republic.

So. Another me was here.

And that opened up a world of frightful possibility.

Naturally, I told my companions nothing of my fears. Syaoran was so intently focused on finding somewhere for his sweetheart to rest and recuperate that I thought it downright cruel to distract him from his task. Mokona, whilst charming and handy as ever, was probably not the most experienced among us when it came to human relationships. If I allowed our stern and thoughtful protector a glimpse into my reflections, Kurogane would only try and force me to tell him every last detail concerning my past and about the fate I was fleeing. And dear, sweet Sakura, with so many of her own problems. Why should I seek to worry her? No, my trepidation was my own, and quite insoluble.

I had thought, however, that I would have more than a twist of the hourglass before I would have to dream up some sort of stopgap to uphold my place in the group.

My twin. My reflection. Supposedly my double, and yet... he stood before me, sturdy and smiling, with calloused hands, and a propitiatory demeanour. What had I ever owned that did not belong to some other, more sheltered person? Those lucky individuals who exist in a state of certainty, sure of their own position, secure and entrenched in their daily routine. Was this facsimile of me more like those whose kindness I had come to rely on?

His smile was not practised. It had never needed to be.

I knew as soon as my eyes fell upon him that this was me, though it took me a moment to recall that his name would therefore be Yuui. That hateful sobriquet is something I had hoped to leave behind me.

This man, ye gods, is pleased to see us. Has been expecting us. I should have realised that, though I sleep without dreams, and soundly, my duplicate would see the dreams of others, just like the Dimension Witch, and Kurogane's beloved Princess Tomoyo in all her incarnations. He thinks he knows me already. How much does he know?

We step inside. The inn is scrubbed and well-trodden. There are paintings and cloth pictures hanging on the walls. They have been accumulated, I see, through a life of hard work and satisfying rewards.

And then, as I stand looking as much a country lad on his first trip to a big town as I ever will, the full realisation, its implications, suddenly hits me. Like an icy fist to the stomach, a thought so sudden and hard that I have to take a few discreet deep breaths lest I find myself examining once more that foreign apple upon my double's beautiful knotted rug.

Fai.

The knowledge that in this country, he like as not is living yet. That his feet have walked these halls. That those neat boots on their little shelf might belong to him.

Once again he is staring over my shoulder. He is never truly far away.

I did this to myself. I hear his name a hundred times a day, on the lips of those who have no idea of his existence, who could never imagine a creature so innocent and sweet, or the dreadful thing that I have done.

I must not let them know. Without the quest, what do I have? I have betrayed Fai. I have betrayed Lord Ashura. I have betrayed the people of Ceres when they depended on me. I have betrayed Valeria by the very fact of my existence. Without these new friends, I am nothing.

A plan. They do not know yet. The game is not lost. Yuui. Surely he will understand. I must appeal to his better nature… I only hope he has one.

As my de facto compatriots hem and haw at the charming interior, I move swiftly, following the light rose scent of the aforementioned tea. I can tell already that it will be excellent. Still more evidence that Yuui runs this inn. He enters, incautiously, not even glancing in my direction. I seize the moment, and his arm.

"Yuui, I really must talk to you alone for a few minutes."

He is surprised. Courteous. Warm and affectionate, and already speaking to me as if I am a brother. "Fine," he says, with a worried half-smile, and goes to arrange things so we won't be interrupted for a few minutes. Brisk and sensible, he distracts my companions and bids me to follow him into the shoe-room. Oddly, the first question to spill over my long-sealed lips is not the most pertinent. But yes, yes he owns the inn. And so does Fai, and perhaps they are expecting to meet my brother, since they are still together.

I will put a stop to that. I haven't the time for lengthy explanations. At any moment one of the others could come crashing in, and ask something utterly unanswerable. And so I put a stop to my soul-brother's yammering.

"Fai is dead. I killed him."

His hands, so curiously animated, stop moving, with as grave a finality as my words. I do believe, cliché of clichés, that the blood is actually draining from his face. He stares at me, with an unmasked fear.

"But…" he manages, clearly realising that time is of the essence, "…why? What happened?"

"Yuui, my dear, as boys, we were given a choice, and I made the wrong one. We haven't the time to talk now. Do not mention Fai. I cannot stress how important this is. Keep your brother away from my companions. Do not let anybody mention him. Though I have nothing against him, I will not be able to explain his presence to my group, which will surely fall apart if it comes out that I have been lying to them all this time." I pause. What can I say to one from whom I expect so much, in return for so little? "I cannot let their quest fail. It is more important than any of them imagine." Led astray by a sudden impulse, I find myself clasping his hand tightly. Finally, an opportunity for a little warmth. "I am sorry. Perhaps there will be time for explanations later."


	5. Strawberries and Cream

_Chapitre Five: Strawberries and Cream_

It used to be that Fai-san was the easiest person to talk to in our group. He teaches me things, and he does my hair sometimes, and he never, ever judges me, or tells me off for forgetting things, or falling asleep when I shouldn't.

I used to be scared of Syaoran-kun. (Don't tell anybody, will you?) He was so intense, and so concerned about me, that I felt for a long time as if I was failing him by having to start all over again. I knew he wasn't a bad person – I can tell these things, you know – but being near him made me feel cruel, and I could never really work out why.

Kurogane... Kurogane-san is different. I don't remember meeting anybody like him before. He's so big, and he's so serious, and when I first met him, all he'd talk about was killing people, and getting away from the group, and how he didn't want to help at all. I thought he was mean, but I couldn't say anything, because he was protecting us anyway, even if it was only because he had to. I didn't really understand until Fai-san was teaching me to make scones, back in the world which was a game really (except we didn't know then). He said to me that Kurogane-san is a good man, and that he keeps quiet because he's always thinking. He said that Kurogane-san likes to protect people just as much as Syaoran, and that we could always trust them both to look after us, no matter what. After that, I was never secretly afraid when Kurogane-san acted fierce. Instead, it made me happy, because I knew it was for my sake.

Mokona is Mokona. Once you understand that, it's easy.

---

I am sleepy, and warm. I can feel myself swaying up and down, and I am enclosed, but somehow, not afraid. Slowly, I become aware of a soft storm of murmuring voices somewhere above my head, and I realise where I am.

He smells like polish, and leather, and the candles they burn for ceremonies. Also, just a little, not unpleasantly, of sweat. When I move my head slightly, I can hear his heartbeat thudding through his springy armour.

I like that.

I am starting to wake up now, and I can hear a voice I don't really recognise. Just as I try to look up and see who this new person is, Kurogane-san starts walking again, taking us both up a step, and down a step. He looks down at me, making sure that I am awake, and he lowers me gently to the ground, pressed against his body, so I don't fall. It's hard to say anything, I'm that tired, but I owe him at least that much, don't I?

"Mmmm... thank you, Kurogane-san," I manage, bowing slightly, in the way he always does when he's being really polite. He gives me an almost-smile, which makes me want to really smile, but I try to keep it inside. When I look around him, I can see that Fai is rushing off somewhere, looking kind of upset, and not really like himself.

"We have to take our shoes off here," said Kurogane, sitting down beside me, and unlacing his boots. (They're enormous!) I slide off my slippers, and I pass them to him, because I'm not sure where they're meant to be put. There's lots of little boxy shelves on the wall, and he puts our shoes together in one place.

"Are we in a new world now, Kurogane-san?" I ask him, not wanting to be stupid, but feeling like I have to make absolutely sure.

"Hmmm? Sure. It's kind of pretty outside. I think you'll like it. Some guy who looks like Fai runs this inn." He offers me a hand, and helps me stand.

"You mean he has a double here?"

"No... not exactly. The other guy looks older, and he says his name's Yuui."

"Oh," I hear myself say, as I straighten out my dress. That's funny. He must look a lot like Fai-san, or Kurogane-san wouldn't have bothered to say it. I wonder if he's the double of one of Fai-san's relatives? Then again... does Fai-san have relatives? Neither Kurogane-san or Fai-san ever really talk about their families.

We walk together, with Kurogane-san just behind me, but somehow managing to lead the way. There's a room with a very low ceiling, with wooden beams, and it smells really good. Like flowers. Fai-san rushes past us again, and Kurogane-san is right, that other man does look a lot like him. For just a moment, I wonder if Kurogane-san is going to fit, but he ducks, and sits on the low bench as if he's done it a thousand times before, and I join him. There are tea things on the table. Two big pots, and six cups, and a little cup beside them, and a jar of something sticky-looking. I think the teapots are probably where the flower-smell is coming from. I imagine that Kurogane-san will only be able to pretend he likes the tea, if it tastes as sweet as it smells.

A noise behind us surprises me. "Ah, Syaoran-kun!" I smile up at him, making sure I look as healthy and happy as I can.

"You're awake, then..." he says, sounding bored, but looking pleased.

"I feel much better now!" I add, cheerfully. "Was I asleep for very long?"

"You missed a girl who thought she knew Fai-san," allows Syaoran-kun, taking a place opposite me. That makes me laugh. I can just picture them!

"Did he pretend he knew her right back?"

"Um, she didn't really give him chance. It was pretty strange. Have you ever seen him not know what to say?" That makes me smile too. My friends are all so kind to me, but they're all so different to each other! "This is a really interesting place, though... the buildings are tall, and they're really colourful." His face lights up as he tries to find words to describe his excitement. "Oh, have you met Yuui-san yet?"

"No, I think he went somewhere with Fai-san... I wonder if the tea is ready to drink?"

Kurogane-san shifts beside me slightly, looking back into the hallway with an expression mixed between curiosity and irritation. But before he can say anything, Fai-san appears at the door, holding a wide, cream-coloured plate, stacked high with little cakes. (They look delicious. Each one has a strawberry on the top, sitting upright in a whirl of cream). Except... it isn't Fai-san, is it? That's Fai-san, just behind him, holding a milk jug, and grinning like he's about to explode. The other man – it must be Yuui-san – is older, anyway. There are little smile-lines around his mouth and eyes, and it makes him look even kinder. His hair is much shorter, and I think he didn't shave this morning. (Not that I've ever seen Fai-san shave. I wonder how old he is? Or maybe he does it in secret...)

Fai-san and his friend (well, I can't imagine that they're not friends, looking so like each other!) both come and sit at the table.

"Good afternoon, my dear!" says Yuui-san, after a brief, strange pause. He's looking straight at me, smiling brightly, and he extends a hand towards me. It's large, though not as large as Kurogane-san's, of course. He has lots of little white scars, and a bandage around one of his fingers. I give him my hand, a little uncertain, and he shakes it briefly, looking satisfied. I bow very slightly, not sure what's polite in this world.

"I'm Sakura; it's a pleasure to meet you! I'm very sorry that I was asleep when we arrived!"

At that, Fai-san bursts into high, clear laughter. "It's not as if you could help it, is it, my dear?"


End file.
